All My Friends
by firedancer
Summary: M/R songfic. But don't hold that against me. "All My Friends" by Counting Crows. My first RentFic, so please R/R! Thanks.


I used to think, when we were younger, "Someday I'll be famous, everyone'll know my name." How naïve I was. I chased that dream until it's end, though. Went on a cross-country tour; small town, big city- didn't matter as long as people would listen. Did I even tell you I was leaving? No, I don't think so. I left a note beside your bed saying, "I'll call." And then the band and I were gone. I did call every two weeks or so. Long-distance calls to the answering machine from Miami, Knoxville, Lexington, St. Louis, but most frequently Santa Fe. Well, the band has split now, baby, and I'm staying with Collins. It's just like we always dreamed about out here. Clear skies, and a crisp moon. Every night, I come outside to look at the stars and talk to you.  
  
Mark. Oh, Mark. We used to sing that Counting Crows song together, after Mimi died; your tenor voice would tremble on the choruses, and my nimble fingers would jump through the chords on that long-gone Fender. We'd sing, "All my friends and lovers leave me alone.I'm still looking for a girl.One way or another.I'm just hoping to find a way.To put my feet out in the world." So full of promise, weren't we? You'd be thirty this year, I think. We both chased that great bohemian dream; I just got a little further than you. That wasn't how it was supposed to be, Mark. You were destined to be the one to survive.  
  
I remember the day your test results came in. The last day I spent in town. You tore open the envelope and then stood silently for what seemed like a lifetime. I crossed the room to stand beside you as support, but you never gave me the chance. You collapsed to your knees and cried into the cold floor. I'm not like you- I never will be-, but right then I wished more than anything that I could be you, just to take away the pain. I had one thing that you never had when April committed suicide, when Mimi stopped fighting: experience. Those same words had come back to haunt me. "HIV- Positive".  
  
All that time on the road. All that time I couldn't face my fears- that I had killed you, that I wasn't who I'd been before that night, that what we had done hadn't been as wrong as I thought. I sent you a postcard or two, talked about new songs and successful gigs to the answering machine, but never anything valid. I never told you that I loved you. I never showed you that your self-sacrifice wasn't in vain.  
  
Was it cold that day in the loft? Maureen told Collins that the rooms were like a freezer except for the one ray of sunshine resting on your back. She sent us the note they found beside your body. It read, "'All my friends and lovers leave me alone to try to have a little fun.either way, I wish I would've known to go walking in the sun and find out if you were the one.' Do you remember that song, Roger? We used to sing it, and then you'd talk about how our life would be if things were different. If people were different. If you hadn't cared about how it looked. But just like your favorite song, you'd wake up the next morning to find everything the same. And everything did stay the same, until that night. The night when your world began to crumble and mine exploded. The night we both got drunk on the red wine you bought. The band had just played a great gig in front of some big record exec and you wanted to celebrate, I think. Suddenly, life was the way we'd always talked about. But things weren't different, were they? No. I bet when you woke up to find it was me asleep beside you, it was all you could do to keep from leaving right then. To your credit, you stuck around to see the results. We had been so careless, Roger. Too drunk to think straight, I guess. You left during the night. For a year, I've waited for you to come home. I'm not waiting anymore. -Mark"  
  
So here I sit, almost six years later with your last thoughts folded in my pocket and a starry desert sky above. "Where there's moonlight, I see your eyes." A song for a different lover, but fitting none-the-less. Back when we used to go to those Life Support meetings- back when you didn't need to go- they would say, "Forget regret or life is yours to miss." Well, I regret a lot of things. I regret leaving you behind. I regret not protecting you from the harsh reality that is my life. Most of all, though, I regret the things I never did. You wrote almost six years ago that you were through with waiting for me. Now it's my turn, I suppose, to wait for you. "Why does distance make us wise?" I'm ready to walk in the sun now, mark. You were always my one. You were always the song. 


End file.
